A system for detecting a person from an image and determining attributes such as an age and a gender is utilized in various occasions such as various image communications such as a videoconference and a videophone; database searching; a security system such as a building security; and a facial recognition system. For example, there is a method of determining that the image shows the face of the person by performing pattern recognition with facial parts such as the eyes, the eyebrows, the nostril, and the mouth, which are characteristic parts of the face of a person, detecting the person in the image, and further determining an attribute (for example, see Patent Document 1). The method of detecting a part of the face is performed in the following order. First the head of the person is detected and then a facial part is extracted.